


The Cat Burgular

by Morgana Jones (Morgana_Jones1)



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Cats, Fluff, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1997319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana_Jones1/pseuds/Morgana%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah, Kira and Helena are living together in an apartment in New York. Helena really likes cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cat Burgular

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bethbrokes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethbrokes/gifts).



Sarah had heard that a lot of parents get their kids pets to teach them how to care for another living thing, or something like that. The Ukrainian girl wasn’t exactly a child, although sometimes she behaved like one, to her twin’s exasperation, not to mention the fact that she had tried to murder Sarah in their first meeting, but she had developed an unfortunate habit of befriending the neighborhood cats and bringing them home. This wouldn’t have been such a problem if they didn’t live in a block of flats in central New York where all pets were kept indoors. Helena’s lock picking skills weren’t at all rusty, that was for sure, and Sarah had even purchased stationary specifically for “sorry my sister stole your cat” notes, Kira of course added a crayon drawing to each one. Nobody can stay mad when faced with an 8 year old’s masterpiece. Still, the cat burgling was becoming an issue, and Helena hadn’t shot anyone recently so Sarah had made a decision.  
“We’re gonna adopt one, yeah? We ain’t buying a posh fluffy thing, you’re gonna go to the pound and pick up a nice cat, and I’m spending like thirty bucks tops.” And so went the arrangements.   
It was a Monday morning, so Helena had walked Kira to school and today was the designated cat day, they’d both decided that it was best to keep the pet a surprise for Kira, which means that Sarah decided and Helena enthusiastically agreed.   
The bell on the door tinkled as Helena opened the door to the animal shelter and the lady on the desk smiled at her. Admittedly it was a nervous smile, as people are often nervous around ill looking people in oversized coats in summer, but it was still a smile.  
“Hello, my sestra made appointment to see the kittens? Yes?” she asked, cocking her head to one side slightly.  
“I’m going to have to ask your name, dear,” said the nervous woman at the desk. She was almost elderly, with short white hair and a pair of glasses hung around her neck.  
“Helena Manning.”   
The woman hit a few keys on the computer, smiled nervously again and said, “Ah yes, here you are, would you like to step through?”  
“Yes please,” Helena replied, accent thick as ever. She’d still not quite grasped the concept of rhetorical questions, but that was never too much of an issue.   
“We don’t have very many kittens, I’m afraid.”  
“What about… big kittens?” Helena asked, English was her second language after all, and words escaped her sometimes.  
“Big kittens?” the woman laughed, “Yes I think we’ve got some big kittens.”  
They had entered a room full of small cages, and Helena’s face fell.  
“You shouldn’t put them in cages. Cages are for bad things, you will make the kittens sad,” She muttered.  
“They’re only here for a short while, and trust me, they’d be much sadder out on the streets. Now… Saffy here is only around one year old, she came to us pregnant and all her kittens were adopted, she’s a sweethear-“ The woman’s sentence was cut off by a low meowing, and Helena’s expression of joy.  
“Oh! This is very _big_ kitten!” she chuckled, crouching down to look at a large ginger cat in a cage at floor level.  
The woman pursed her lips, “That’s Archie. He’s a little bit angry, he’s been here for a while now, he needs someone very… special to adopt him. You were looking for kittens?”  
Helena wasn’t listening too closely to the woman, “Hello Archie,” she cooed, wiggling her fingers between the bars, “Here, big kitty, come to Helena.”   
The ginger tom sniffed at her fingers for a moment, and then began to rub his battle scarred chin against her knuckles. “Unlock him,” said Helena, “I will take the Archie kitten.”  
The woman was taken aback, “Really? That one?”  
“Yes.” The tom was now purring, loudly too.  
“Well… he seems to like you at least… you have to pay a donation to the shelter, to adopt an animal though. Cash or card?”  
“I have cash, my sestra goes working. Unlock the Archie kitten.”  
“I’ll just go fetch you a carry box, dear,” The woman said, bustling to the corner of the room and returning with a cardboard container, “Excuse me.”  
She bent down to the cage, and wiggled a key round in the lock until the door swung open. Archie slunk out of his cage and wound himself around Helena’s legs, purring. He was a huge, scraggy thing, skinny despite his size with a scarred face and only one and a half ears. Helena scooped him up and rubbed her face against his, making a purring noise deep in her throat.   
“How much monies?” she asked, scratching the cat behind his torn ears.  
“Twenty five dollars is the typical adoption fee for cats,” said the woman, still dumbfounded by the animal’s behavior.   
Helena shifted Archie’s weight onto one arm and pulled thirty dollars out of her back pocket, “You will get thirty, but make sure the other kittens are happy, take them out of the cages for times.”  
“Alright?” the woman replied, accepting the money.  
“Thank you, friend,” Helena said, beginning to walk out with the cat in her arms, she turned around and took Archie’s paw, making him wave, “Goodbye lady I am gone,” she continued, in a lower voice, before leaving the shelter.   
The almost-elderly volunteer was so confused that she forgot to tell the Ukrainian girl that she’d left the carry box.

**Author's Note:**

> So Beth was like "write a fic where Helena gets a cat" and I was like "YES GOOD IDEA" so I wrote a fic where Helena gets a cat. And it's horribly written.


End file.
